1981 Spanish coup attempt
A coup d'état was attempted in Spain in February 1981 by elements of the Civil Guard and the Spanish military. The failure of the coup marked the last serious attempt to revert Spain to a Francoist government and served to consolidate Spain's democratization process. King Juan Carlos I played a major role in foiling the coup, and the monarchy emerged with renewed legitimacy as a result.
The coup began on 23 February 1981 when Lieutenant-Colonel Antonio Tejero, along with 200 armed Civil Guard officers, stormed the Congress of Deputies chamber in Madrid during a vote to swear in Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo as President of the Government. The officers held the parliamentarians and ministers hostage for 18 hours, during which the King denounced the coup in a public television broadcast, calling for rule of law and the democratic government to continue. The royal address fatally undermined the coup, and the hostage-takers surrendered the next morning and all deputies were freed. A simultaneous coup attempt, executed by Captain General Jaime Milans del Bosch in Valencia, also failed. Tejero, Milans del Bosch and a third conspirator, General Alfonso Armada, were sentenced to thirty years in prison. In 1988 the Spanish Supreme Court suggested pardoning Alfonso Armada and Tejero; the government of Felipe González pardoned the former.
Background
The coup attempt was linked to the Spanish transition to democracy. Four factors generated tensions that the governing Democratic Center Union coalition of conservative parties could not contain:- almost 20% unemployment, capital flight, and 16% inflation, which were caused by an economic crisis
- difficulty devolving governance to Spanish regions
- increased violence by the Basque terrorist group ETA
- opposition to the fledgling democracy from within the Spanish Armed Forces
While seditious sentiments grew in sectors of the military and extreme right, the government faced a serious crisis at the beginning of the decade, and its position became increasingly untenable in the course of 1980. Key events saw the resignation of the Minister of Culture, Manuel Clavero on 15 January; the restructuring of the government on 3 May; the motion of no confidence against Adolfo Suárez moved by the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party between 28 May and 30 May; the resignation on 22 July of the vice-president, Fernando Abril Martorell, which produced a new reshuffle in September; and the election in October of Miguel Herrero Rodríguez de Miñón, alternative candidate of the official bid for president of the centrist parliamentary group promoted by Suárez.
The growing weakness of Suárez at the heart of his own party led to his televised resignation as prime minister and president of the UCD on 29 January 1981. On 1 February, the "Almendros Collective" published an openly insurgent article in the far-right newspaper El Alcázar, which was the mouthpiece of the Búnker hardliners, including Carlos Arias Navarro, Luis Carrero Blanco's successor as prime minister, and the leader of the francoist party Fuerza Nueva, Blas Piñar. From 2 to 4 February, the King and Queen traveled to Guernica, where the deputies of Basque separatist party Herri Batasuna received them with boos and hisses and various incidents. On 6 February, the chief engineer of the Lemoiz nuclear project, José María Ryan, was found murdered, having been kidnapped a few days earlier. Meanwhile, there was no further news about industrialist Luis Suñer after his abduction.
In this atmosphere of mounting tension, the process of choosing Suárez's successor began. Between 6 and 9 February, the 2nd UCD congress in Majorca made it clear that the party was unravelling and Agustín Rodríguez Sahagún was named acting prime minister. On 10 February, Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo was named candidate for prime minister.
Political flashpoint
Tensions came to a head on 13 February, when news emerged of the torture and murder in Carabanchel of José Ignacio Arregui, a member of the Basque nationalist movement ETA, who had been held incommunicado for 10 days in the General Security Directorate . A general strike in the Basque region and an acrimonious debate between opposing parliamentary groups in the Congress followed. The government then dismissed various police chiefs, while in the Interior Ministry there were resignations in solidarity with the torturers. El Alcázar'' newspaper judged the government's actions a show of weakness that needed to be stopped.Against this extraordinary backdrop, Calvo Sotelo presented his proposed government on 18 February, but, during congressional voting on the 20th, he failed to obtain the necessary majority approval for confirmation as prime minister, so a new vote was scheduled for the 23rd: the day the conspirators had chosen for their coup attempt. As planned, the coup would require Tejero and General Jaime Milans del Bosch as its principal instigators, with a minor role being played by General Alfonso Armada, a confidant of King Juan Carlos I.
Coup
Assault on the Congress of Deputies
Several TVE cameramen and technicians filmed almost half an hour of the event, providing the world with an audiovisual record of the attempted coup. Moreover, members of the private radio station SER continued their live broadcast with open microphones from within the Congress of Deputies, which meant that the general public was able to follow along by radio as events unfolded. As such, the date is sometimes remembered as "the Night of Transistor Radios" '.At 18:00, the roll-call vote for the swearing in ' of Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo as Prime Minister began in the Congress of Deputies. At 18:23, as Socialist Party deputy Manuel Núñez Encabo was standing up to cast his vote, 200 Guardia Civil agents led by Lieutenant-Colonel Antonio Tejero and armed with submachine guns, burst into the congressional chambers. Tejero immediately took the Speaker's platform and shouted "¡Quieto todo el mundo!", ordering everyone to lie down on the floor.
Most of the deputies dropped to the floor, except for three: acting minister of defence and deputy prime minister General Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado; acting prime minister Adolfo Suárez; and Communist Party leader Santiago Carrillo, who calmly lit a cigarette and remained seated.
As the highest-ranking military official present, Army General Gutiérrez Mellado refused to comply, confronting Tejero and ordering him to stand down and hand over the weapon. Outgoing Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez made a move to join Gutiérrez Mellado, who briefly scuffled with several civil guards until Tejero fired a shot into the air, which was followed by a sustained burst of submachine-gun fire from the assailants. The shots wounded some of the visitors in the chamber's upper gallery. Undeterred, arms akimbo in defiance, 68-year-old General Gutiérrez Mellado refused to sit down, even after Tejero attempted, unsuccessfully, to wrestle him to the floor. Their face-off ended with Tejero returning to the rostrum and Gutiérrez Mellado returning to his seat.
After several minutes, all the deputies retook their assigned congressional seats. The captain of the Guardia Civil,, strode to the Speaker's platform, demanded silence and announced that all those present were to wait for the arrival of "the competent military authority."
At 19:35, acting prime minister Suárez stood up and asked to speak to the commanders. Shots were fired in response, and a guard flashed a submachine gun towards the deputies' seats, demanding silence. One of the assailants ordered, "Mr. Suárez, stay in your seat!" Suárez was about to reply when someone else shouted, "siéntate maldita sea" Finally, Tejero grabbed Suárez by the arm and led him forcefully to a room outside the chamber. When Suárez demanded that Tejero explain "this madness"; Tejero's only reply was "¡Todo por España!". When Suárez pressed the point, citing his authority as prime minister, Tejero - using the informal "tú" - replied, "¡Tú ya no eres presidente de nada!"
Shortly afterward, five of the parliament's deputies were separated from the rest: Prime Minister Suárez; the opposition leader, Felipe González, and his deputy, Alfonso Guerra González; Communist Party leader, Santiago Carrillo; and the defense minister, Agustín Rodríguez Sahagún. The insurgents' hope, in taking both the executive and legislative authorities prisoner, was to create a power vacuum that would force a new political order.
After 40 minutes, PSC deputy Anna Balletbò was the first person to be released. She was pregnant with twins and when the soldiers saw her, agreed to release her. The first thing she did was call her family and the President of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Jordi Pujol, to ask for King Juan Carlos I's telephone number. The king asked her how many assailants there were and what their ranks were, and she informed him that Tejero was possibly responsible, as another deputy,, had told her while they were crouching down.
Almost at the same time, the Captain General of the Third Military Region, Jaime Milans del Bosch, joined the coup with a revolt in Valencia, ordering tanks to be brought out onto the streets and declaring a general state of emergency in an attempt to convince other senior military figures to align with him in supporting the coup. At 21:00 that evening, the Director of National Security, Francisco Laína, published a statement on RTVE announced that, under the instructions of King Juan Carlos I, a provisional government would be formed with the undersecretaries of different ministries in order to ensure State government in alliance with the Assembly of Military Chiefs of Staff and led by himself.
The coup was vehemently condemned by member countries of the EEC, especially since Spain was in preliminary negotiations for membership. Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the UK, called the coup a "terrorist act." Alexander Haig, US Secretary of State, described the coup as an "internal affair".
Meanwhile, another insurgent general, Torres Rojas, failed in his attempt to oust General Juste from the Army's Armoured Division No. 1 "Brunete", resulting in Torres Rojas having to abandon his plan to take control of key strategic points in Madrid, including state radio and television headquarters and, therefore, firsthand control of the information as events unfolded.